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A sheriff's deputy shot a dog. Then his owner cut off the head

Nate Goodwin cut off his dog's head after a Crawford County deputy shot and killed the animal Friday, Dec. 1, 2017. The dog reportedly bit a neighbor and lunged at the deputy before he was shot. Goodwin posted these videos of the encounter with the sheriff's office on Facebook.

Nate Goodwin cut off his dog's head after a Crawford County deputy shot and killed the animal Friday, Dec. 1, 2017. The dog reportedly bit a neighbor and lunged at the deputy before he was shot. Goodwin posted these videos of the encounter with the sheriff's office on Facebook. Nate GoodwinFacebook

Nate Goodwin cut off his dog's head after a Crawford County deputy shot and killed the animal Friday, Dec. 1, 2017. The dog reportedly bit a neighbor and lunged at the deputy before he was shot. Goodwin posted these videos of the encounter with the sheriff's office on Facebook. Nate GoodwinFacebook

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Goodwin’s girlfriend called to tell him “Big Boy has been shot,” he said.

“I left work and went straight home, found my dog dead in my yard,” Goodwin told The Telegraph on Monday.

The deputy who killed Big Boy was nice enough, Goodwin said. The two talked about their shared interest in automobiles.

Then, James Hollis, a sheriff’s investigator, showed up with questions about Big Boy’s vaccination records.

What happened next unfolded in a series of short videos Goodwin took of the encounter. Some of the videos were removed from Facebook due to their graphic nature. Others have garnered tens of thousands of views.

“I knew I had to have some way of proving this,” Goodwin said. “I just don’t think I was supposed to be the one to remove my dog’s head the way they made me do it.”

One video opens with Hollis threatening to take Goodwin to jail. Goodwin asked what he would be charged with and the other officer responded, “you can be charged with disorderly conduct.”

“You can sit there all you want and try to record all you want to record,” Hollis says in the video.

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Man says deputies told him to decapitate dog or go to jail

Nate Goodwin says Crawford County deputies told him he needed to decapitate his dead pit bull or go to jail. His dog Big Boy was shot and killed earlier by a deputy after it bit a neighbor and lunged toward the deputy.

Nate Goodwin says Crawford County deputies told him he needed to decapitate his dead pit bull or go to jail. His dog Big Boy was shot and killed earlier by a deputy after it bit a neighbor and lunged toward the deputy.

Laura Corley and Jason VorheesThe Telegraph

In a video taken after the decapitation, Hollis and the other officer can be heard giving instructions to Goodwin’s girlfriend. Big Boy’s head was placed in a white plastic bag.

“She gonna place that into the bag and they got to freeze it,” Hollis said in the video. “That can be tested for rabies, OK?”

The other officer gave the woman a phone number and told her to “meet them at the health department in Roberta with the head. Give her a call in 15-20 minutes.”

“Tonight?” she asked.

“Yes. It has to be done tonight,” the officer said. “They have to put it in the refrigerator overnight.”

The woman told The Telegraph she cried as she drove the dog’s head to the health department at 7 p.m. that evening.

On Monday, Goodwin told The Telegraph that the officers offered him the option to call a veterinarian and pay to have the head removed. However, with three young children around Christmas time, money is tight.

The Crawford County Sheriff’s Office was inundated with hundreds of phone calls from across the country after the videos were shared online.

Messages left for Sheriff Lewis Walker were not returned. Office staff said Walker was in Atlanta on Monday.

Hollis was back at work Monday. Office staff confirmed an internal investigation into the incident was ongoing.

The initial incident report was not available, but according to past reports, police have been called to the address on at least five occasions since 2015. All of the calls were in reference to dogs and dog bites.